Monday, February 08, 2010

The Number of China's Patent Filings was More Than 10 Times of India's

THE number of applications for international patents fell by 4.5% in 2009 compared with the year before to 159,000 as companies in Western countries cut back on R&D spending during the recession. Yet applications from east Asian economies, including Japan and South Korea, increased slightly, while those from China soared by 30%. Since 2005 applications from China have grown by 210% as the country has developed a home-grown high-tech sector. Source

International patent filings experienced a sharper than average decline in a number of industrialized countries. For example, the filing rate dropped by 11.4% in the USA and by 11.2% in Germany in 2009.

The United States of America (USA) maintained its top ranking (annex 2), filing just under a third of all international applications in 2009 (45,790), followed by Japan (+3.6%, 29,827 applications), Germany (-11.2% or 16,736 applications), ROK (+2.1%, 8,066 applications), China (29.7%, 7,946 applications), France (+1.6%, 7166 applications), United Kingdom (-3.5% or 5,320 applications), the Netherlands (+3.0% or 4,471 applications), Switzerland (-1.6% or 3,688 applications) and Sweden (-11.3% or 3,667 applications).

The University of California accounted for the largest number of applications published in the category of educational institutions. Most top-filing universities, however, experienced declines in the number of international patent filings in 2009.

The largest number of international applications received from developing countries in 2009 came from the Republic of Korea (8,066) and China (7,946) followed by India (761), Singapore (594), Brazil (480), South Africa (389), Turkey (371), Malaysia, (218), Mexico (185) and Barbados (96).

Developing countries make up over 78% of the membership of the PCT, representing 112 of the 142 countries that have signed up to the treaty and accounted for 14% of the total number of filings (with China and ROK accounting for 10%). Source

Patent filing with patent offices in their own countries

The above data came from WIPO. There are also big difference between the patent filings inside China and India. The latest data was for 2007 but it was published in 2008.

According to global research and analytics firm Evalueserve, India filed 35,000 patent applications during the fiscal year 2007-08, whereas China had more than 2.45 lakh applications in 2007.

In 2007, filings by domestic applicants in China accounted for 62.4 percent of the 20-year patent applications with the S.I.P.O.

During the same period, the year-on-year increase in domestic 20-year patent application filing in China was at 25 percent, whereas that of foreign filings stood at 4.5 percent.

On the other hand, only 24,505 patent applications were filed at the I.P.O. in 2005–06. Among them, domestic applicants filed about only 20 percent (4,855 applications) while foreign applicants filed 80 percent (19,650 applications). (Source)

Conclusion

When Indian and western media often tag Indian economy as knowledge-based economy while tell the world that China is only a copycat. But China's filed 7,946 patent application in 2009, and India only did 761 in the same year. The number of China's patent filling was than 10 times of India's while China's economy was about 4 times of India's (US$ 4.9 trillion VS US$1.28 trillion).

The trend difference of patent application in the two countries are obvious. From year 2004 to 2009, The numbers of India's patent filings were: 724, 679, 836, 9011070, 761. During the same period, the numbers of China's patent filings were: 1706, 2512, 3937, 5465, 6128,7946. This is a great leap forward. Source and source.

Comparing with China's achievement, India's so-called knowledge-based economy is simply another joke for the world.

India was even not in Top 15 countries by the number of patent filling in 2009

Thursday, February 04, 2010

US thinktank: On religious discrimination, India next only to Iraq

NEW DELHI: For India, international recognition of its free and pluralistic society has always been hard to come by and while things are changing,

they are clearly changing slowly. A study carried out by Washington-based Pew Research Centre, the highly respected US thinktank, said India is next only to Iraq when it comes to social hostility and religious discrimination perpetrated by individuals and groups.

The study titled `Global Restrictions on Religion' took into account the situation in as many as 198 countries, North Korea being the only notable exception, to derive the conclusion. India was just below Iraq and well above countries like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan when it came to social hostility in the country. Pakistan is at the third place right below India.

The study, which claims to cover 99.5% of the world population, deals with restrictions imposed on religion not just by social groups and individuals but also by the government. Even in the case of government induced restrictions, India fares badly with its position in the top 40 countries out of the 198 mentioned.

Even though the report says that "the highest overall levels of restrictions are found in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran, where both the government and society at large impose numerous limits on religious beliefs and practices'' India is ranked well above them in the social hostility index.

While India has fared badly on both, China has done remarkably well when it comes to social hostility even though it has done badly in the government imposed restrictions section. "Vietnam and China, for instance, have high government restrictions on religion but are in the moderate or low range when it comes to social hostilities. Nigeria and Bangladesh follow the opposite pattern: high in social hostilities but moderate in terms of government actions,'' it says.

The report clubs India with Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and Bangladesh as countries where large segments of the population want to protect the special place of one particular religion. This is how it explains the high social hostility index for these countries. "Many of the restrictions imposed in these countries are driven by groups pressing for the enshrinement of their interpretation of the majority faith, including through Shariah law in Muslim societies and Hindutva movement in India which seeks to define India as a Hindu nation,'' says the report.

In preparing this study, states the report, the Pew Forum devised a battery of measures, phrased as questions, to gauge the levels of government and social restrictions on religion in each country. "To answer these questions, Pew Forum researchers combed through 16 widely cited, publicly available sources of information, including reports by the US State Department, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, the Council of the European Union, the United Kingdom's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, the Hudson Institute and Amnesty International,'' it states.

QnA: Although India is called a secular country, in reality have we ever been secular?

For those who don't know how small India's market size is, I give you some more data on the sales of the same brands in the same year (2009) in China. You can find the clue by doing simple comparison. Basically, tiny Indian market can be ignored.

Mercedes-Benz sold a record 68,500 cars in China last year, it said in a statement late on Monday, beating its previous target of 65,000 units.

BMW's deliveries in 2009 climbed 38 percent in China to 90,500 vehicles and 24 percent in India to 3,600. Source

According to the Volvo's news release, the company sold 22,405 cars in China in 2009. (Source)

The size of whole auto market in 2009

As auto market in whole, China became the largest auto market in the world. In 2009 passenger car sales soared to 10.3 million in China and total vehicle sales are estimated at 13.6 million, the China Passenger Car Association said. That represents growth of about 45 percent from 2008.

By contrast, U.S. sales of cars and light trucks plunged 21 percent in 2009 to 10.4 million as a shaky economy kept buyers away from showrooms. It was the first time any country bought more cars than Americans. (Source)

Only 1.4 million cars were sold in Inddia in 2009 according to a Bloomberg News calculation of data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers on Jan. 8 2009. (Source). That number is really pityful and embarrassing for a country of 1.1 billion population.